Recently, navigation devices, including portable navigation devices (PNDs), have become more popular and affordable for most users. The navigation system can, not only determine the user's current position by utilizing the Global Positioning System (GPS), but also provide different routing information between the user's current position and the destination. In order to perform above mentioned functions, the navigation system is usually equipped with navigation computer programs and one or more detailed database to store and provide maps, map attributes, road networks, geographical features and points-of-interests (POI) information.
Generally, the navigation system generates a preferred or optimized route after receiving destination information input by the user, and the route is usually displayed associated with a map on a display unit of the device. However, when the user is entering a new city or a location he or she is unfamiliar with, the user may need some immediate information specifically about the new city, such as dining, lodging or a quick introduction of the new city. For example, when a visitor comes to the city of Los Angeles for his very first time with little knowledge about the city, and just gets his rental car nearby the Los Angeles International Airport (LAX).
In such a situation, he probably needs to know immediately about the restaurant or hotel information, as well as famous places to visit, such as Hollywood, Disneyland, Beverly Hills, etc. If he is a sports enthusiast or music lover, he may immediately want to know the locations of sports stadiums or concert halls in the city. Those information is surely available on the Internet for everyone, however, it may be inconvenient for the visitor to retrieve those information while driving.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,522,875 issued to Dowling et al. discloses geographical web browser which allows a user to navigate a network application such as the World Wide Web by physically navigating in geographical coordinates. More specifically, the geographical web browser may be implemented in a mobile unit 105 which is operative to receive locally broadcast signals or to operate a global positioning system (GPS) receiver. As can be seen in FIG. 1, the mobile unit 105 navigates into different physical localities, different web pages are displayed by the geographical web browser.
When the mobile unit 105 crosses the town and enters a second area, a new set of web pages is downloaded relating to properties in the second area. However, the Dowling et al. patent does not disclose or teach how to determine whether the mobile unit such as a vehicle is entering a different locality (city or other administrative region). Also, the driver may be distracted when operating the web browser while driving.
U.S. Pat. No. 7,461,528 to issued to Taniguchi et al. discloses a content processing apparatus and content display apparatus which shows the content based on location information. Such location information is preferably provided to a mobile terminal user, as shown in the structure of FIG. 2. However, similar to the Dowling et al. patent noted above, the Taniguchi et al. patent does not disclose anything related to determine whether the mobile unit is entering a different or new locality.
Therefore, there remains a need for a new and improved apparatus and method in a navigation system, including portable navigation system, to detect arrival to a new city and provide information of the new city. The information of the new city includes dining, lodging, sightseeing, sports stadiums, concert halls, or social networking information to the user to have better understanding of the new city.